Community networks provide an easy method of communication for people that may be geographically separated by large distances. Community networks may take many forms, including electronic mail (e-mail) networks, Internet forums and message boards, instant messaging (IM) networks, and chat rooms such as Internet relay chat (IRC). Community networks promote open discussions relating to any number of topics such as politics, religion, professions, education, sports, hobbies, and dating, or just personal person-to-person communication.
E-mail is an extremely popular method of communication among a network of people. However, e-mail is limited in that the communications do not take place in real time. There is a delay, sometimes a substantial delay, between the time an e-mail is sent and the time that it is received by another party. Additionally, a party can only send e-mail to another party whose e-mail address is known. There are no means by which a sending party can browse a large list of unknown e-mail addresses or by which a sending party can visualize and interact with a network of all parties having e-mail capabilities in order to locate the e-mail address for the intended receiving party.
Internet forums allow people to post messages in much the same way as an e-mail is sent. The message, however, is posted to a forum that allows a potentially large community of people to view the message and post replies. Internet forums work well for communicating with a large audience, but when a private conversation with one or a few members of the community is desired, the same limitations discussed above with respect to e-mail apply.
IM networks and chat rooms allow people to communicate in similar ways as e-mail and Internet forums, only in real-time. A person joining an IM network may have a list of contacts, or those people whose IM addresses are known and who have agreed to be a part of the contact list. Subject to some user preference options when setting up a user profile, users that are participating in an IM network are notified as to the online status, or availability, of the contacts in their list. However, the knowledge of the status or other information pertaining to others sharing the IM network is limited to those in the contact list. Chat rooms are subject to similar characteristics and limitations.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is provided.